Shopping Bag

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

It was a sunny anomaly of a November Saturday morning, so I rang Jack and asked if she could meet me down by the Boardwalk later in the afternoon. I figured if there was anything that made tourists care enough to come to Santa Cruz, it was this century-old piece of history on the beach, and that made it a very “Santa Cruz” thing to do. She pulled up in a creamy white ’67 Triumph Spitfire looking like a million bucks; drew a small crowd, too. We walked from one end of the park to the other, among the crowds of selfie-taking, deep-fried-oreo-cotton-candy-corndog-eating tourists taking in one of the last sunny weekends of the year, stopping every so often to ponder funnel cake options. By the time the sun was ready to retire for the day, we were sitting out on a lifeguard tower trying to avoid seagull shit falling from the sky. I didn’t want to spend another minute risking it, so I offered up an alternative to the overpriced boardwalk treats to get us outta there: Foster’s Freeze. From the warning stories I’d been told, eating at the place was a death wish…kiss your bowels goodbye. On the other hand, it’s cheap and open at ungodly hours. Jack was game. Said she’d bite the bullet, and I ordered her vanilla ice cream cone. I didn’t take her for a vanilla girl, but maybe she was playing it safe. Daring, but safe? She’s alive to tell the tale of surviving Foster's, anyways… and if any camera nerds wanted to know, I used a Rolleiflex 2.8D Planar with Kodak Portra 400.